


Fox Wit and a Hero's Smile

by BlueLaceAgate



Category: Naruto, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Autistic Midoriya Izuku, Autistic Uzumaki Naruto, BAMF Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki Would Fit in Perfectly With Shinobi, Inko Midoriya is the Best, Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama & Uzumaki Naruto Friendship, Midoriya Izuku Has ADHD, Midoriya Izuku Has One for All Quirk, Midoriya Izuku is a Good Friend, Midoriya Izuku is a Problem Child, Midoriya Izuku is a Ray of Sunshine, Naruto Uzumaki is Izuku Midoriya, Naruto is Neurodivergent, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Shinobi Morality, Smart Uzumaki Naruto, Supportive Midoriya Inko, Uzumaki Naruto has ADHD, Uzumaki Naruto is a Good Friend, and he's not the only one, how does one even write allistic characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25420957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLaceAgate/pseuds/BlueLaceAgate
Summary: Being a Hero sounds like everything Naruto's ever wanted. And absolutely nothing, not his lack of a Quirk, or the absence of chakra, or some baby villains, or the world telling him he can't, is going to stop him. He's Midoriya Izuku and he's going to save everyone, believe it!
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku & Shinsou Hitoshi, Bakugou Katsuki & Shinsou Hitoshi, Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama & Uzumaki Naruto, Midoriya Inko & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Shinsou Hitoshi
Comments: 22
Kudos: 283





	1. Being a Baby is Hard

Naruto doesn’t remember dying.

He remembers winning, for sure. Couldn’t forget that, not in a million years. Odds stacked against them, against gods and immortals and undead bastards, his precious people fighting by his side like gods and mortals and shinobi. It had been awesome. Awful and heart wrenching and infuriating and fuck he could still taste the blood and dirt and sweat on the back of his throat, choking, too much, desperate and just about the worst thing ever. But awesome.

Because they had won.

They had won and were standing there in the wreckage of the battlefield days later because something heavy had been building in his chest, in his gut. He wanted to make sure they were gone. And then something in his chest, in his gut, it moved. It pulled and tugged and screamed inside him, twisting and wrenching. The world clicked sideways and he felt packed, jutsu torn soil on the side of his face as he hit the ground, sun warm and blood cold. He remembers something inside of him giving.

He remembers gasping wetly, weakly for air. Trembling and confused and remembering nothing but ghosts of things he should be feeling. Cold, then warm then cold-warm-bright. He couldn’t move anything, could barely wriggle. He knew something wasn’t right. But it wa warm. Felt safe. Which should have been a dead give away something was wrong, except it wasn’t, because he couldn’t think.

———

Awareness comes back in pieces, slotting together through confusion. He feels drugged, thoughts and memories and feelings and images of the world around him slipping through his fingers.

It takes a while to clear up.

The first coherent thought Naruto has is “Sakura-chan?”

Because things are confusing. But he remembers fighting, remembers winning, remembers outlines of light and chakra and killing intent so strong it almost brought him to his knees and he remembers that something was wrong. Something felt wrong, felt bad. But he feels okay now. Groggy and weak and not quite all there, but okay. Which means Sakura-chan had to have fixed it, right?

He looks for her.

It takes a while to get that done properly, because everything is weird and heavy and bright. He’s in a room. A room with pale yellow walls and pictures of bumble bees and suns and flowers and some kind of long necked spotty horse that was probably a god or a summon animal, he’s pretty sure. And it’s all super big. He’s in a prison too, except it has wooden bars and no top which makes it pretty much useless against shinobi and possibly civilians too. He admits he doesn’t know much about civilian capabilities.

His first mostly coherent string of thoughts start with “Kaka-sensei is a bastard” and “I can’t believe he managed to actually prank me”. He’s gonna get the bastard, because this is a very mean, very funny thing to do to someone who feels as weak as a baby right now. It’s still kind of like he’s swimming in oil or jello or something when he tries to think too much, but that’s half a clue about what’s going on in and of itself. Drugs, and poisons, don’t really work on him. Not when he’s functional and in good health. In fact, the only times they have are when he got his heart vaporized by Sasuke’s Chidori and at the beginning of his training with the fox’s chakra and Ero-sensei. Overworked chakra pathways. Not something that happens to him a lot, but not impossible. Stops his chakra from just purging the stuff from his system.

So, there’d probably been an attempt on his life, even if he can’t remember it, and he’s had to regrow most of his chest again, or something, and they’re keeping him drugged up until . . . Something.

He nods, then goes to run his fingers through his hair.

Instead, he smacks himself in the face very softly with a chubby baby hand. What? He looks at his hand. He scrunches up his fingers. Then spreads them wide. It was tiny and chubby and soft in a way he wasn’t sure his had ever been. He waves it around. Huh.

It takes about three days for it to finally click and six hours for him to stop trying to break the genjustsu. Because that’s what this has to be. Has to. Except it isn’t. And he can’t even feel his chakra.

It’s a lot for a baby brain to process.

———

It takes him a really, embarrassingly long time to stop being being sad and trying to convince himself this isn’t real and aggressively ignoring the world around him and letting his weird strong baby emotions take over everything and start acting like a shinobi. Kaka-sensei would be so disappointed. And worried. Sasuke would call him an idiot, but that wasn’t new, and Naruto would like to see him handle this shit with grace and control and whatever the opposite of a years long, consitpated emo phase was. So there. Sakura would probably just sigh at him. Or get angry. Probably both.

He couldn’t wait to tell them about this. Because he would, someday, even if only in the afterlife. And any time he thinks otherwise and his awful baby eyes get wet and drippy he just thinks Fuck You realy loud and tells himself that he will even if he has to beat up the Shinigami to do it. Because honestly, aside from the baby thing, at this point, he isn't convinced he can't beat the Shinigami up and make it happen. Or at least impress him enough for long enough that he gets to do whatever the hell he wants.

In some, that might be called arrogance. For Naruto Uzukmaki, it's somewhere between idle musing and a promise. And Naruto Uzumaki doesn’t break promises.

So he starts training right away, wiggling his baby limbs and standing and falling over and hobbling around and falling over and failing to do a real pushup and mostly succeeding a couple of crunches until he’s tired as hell and barely holding onto copiousness, falling asleep, drowsy in the afternoon sun. He takes a nap.

He wakes up to soft hands and a soft voice and a round face with round green eyes and long, awesome, amazing, super cool green hair and he feels safe.

“Did you have a good nap Izukkun? Kaa-chan brought your favorite, Giraffe!”  
She smiles at him, sun silhouetting her like a goddess, except the cool kind and not the evil kind, holding up a baby blanket with a yellow and brown head that looked kinda, in a baby blanket way, like the summon animal on his walls.

Kaa-chan.

He hadn’t realized, he’d been so out of it . . . He had a Kaa-chan now. A real for real actual Kaa-chan who was here and alive and who looked down at him with so much love it hurt to look at for too long and oh.

Oh.

His little baby heart feels like it’s exploding and he opens his clumsy baby mouth and reaches out his clumsy baby hands and he smiles and he says, sounds all round and weird in his mouth like marbles or water balloons: “Kaa-cha!”

His Kaa-chan starts crying and cooing and pulls him into a big-warm-safe hug and he can feel his heart breaking and burning and so bright he feels like he might die and he’s crying and he’s smiling and it’s perfect. It’s so, so perfect.

He has a Kaa-chan and nothing is ever, ever going to hurt her.

———

Naruto Uzumaki is Izuku Midoriya and he has his Kaa-chan’s green hair and green eyes. He had big freckles like he’s never seen before and a round baby face with features he can’t recognize and can’t look at and think of a history and a sacrifice and his parents, heroes, legends. He doesn’t have whisker marks or orange aorund his eyes. He can’t see anything of himself in his face.

But he has his Kaa-chan’s green hair and green eyes and her big freckles and maybe he can forgive himself for not hating that it’s not the same, looking in the mirror, wearing a soft yellow shirt and green shorts to match his Kaa-chan’s soft yellow shirt and green shorts. The shirt’s match, declaring them a Plus Ultra baby and a Plus Ultra mom and he has no idea what that means, but it sounds awesome.

He even has a little bucket hat with frogs on it.

He’s guilty that he’s so happy now. He can’t help it. Not with baby emotions all big and tangled up and the world’s most amazing Kaa-chan.

He can babble little sentences now, if he concentrates really hard. Kaa-chan lights up every time he does and he’s so proud, little chest puffing up before he can help himself. He’s learned what a giraffe is, too, from a picture book and a couple of stumbling questions. They’re super cool, but not as cool as toads. He thinks really hard when he tell Kaa-chan this. Because he has to get all the words out right. She thinks it’s the cutest thing she’s ever seen, he can tell, because she smiles and giggles and ruffles his hair. And he smiles up at her until his cheeks hurt because his Kaa-chan should be happy all the time. He’ll make sure she’s happy all the time, as much as he can, because he’s never had a real for real actual not dead for real Kaa-chan before and she’d everything he ever dreamed of in those cold, lonely nights before he for a real family, got Iruka-sensei and Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-teme and more and more and bigger and bigger until his heart was so full it couldn’t hurt anymore. Until it didn’t break on it’s own sharp edges when nights were too quiet and he was too hungry and his short nails dug red crescents into his palms that healed almost bloodlessly before he could ever see the damage because that was the only thing he could do but scream.

He doesn’t hate it here. Not that he could. HIs precious people would worry if he was sad. So he would live, for them, for himself, and because Naruto Uzumaki didn’t give up so neither would Izuku Midoriya.

———

The night is quiet, and he can’t sleep.

He can’t move around a lot either, that might set of the weird baby monitor and wake up Kaa-chan and she looked really tired when she read him his bedtime story, which was about a Hero with a cape who could punch things really good, like Sakura-chan. He had spent a long, long time trying to find his chakra again, except he couldn’t. Which is frustrating. And he feels like he’s going to cry. But he doesn’t, because then he wouldn’t be able to stop because of his dumb squishy baby body.

Oh.

Oh yeah. Wait.

Naruto feels stupid. He closes his eyes and focuses real hard, which has never been his best skillset, exactly. Intentionally directing that focus, at least, works about as well as directing a monsoon most days. He manages enough to feel himself start to slip, start to fall backwards.

He opens his eyes to clear water around his calves and a big, open, dark space and bright yellow eyes.

“Kuwama!” His stupid baby mouth squeals, because of course this new body followed him here.

He thinks the fox is going to eat him for a second, and then they look real hard at Naruto’s baby body and then they sigh and flop into the water and start chuckling. Naturo scrunches up his eyes and trys really hard to make his body his old one again, because this is his mind and he should be able to make those kinds of decisions. But yeah, no such luck.

“Only you, brat.” They growl, low rumble feeling more like real home, like familiarity and warmth and family and safety, in a way he hadn’t even realized was missing. It eases the slow buzzing of paranoia in his mind that says things should be different, that it all should be different, that none of this is right.

“Kurama.” He says again, stretching out the word to pronounce it right. It’s not as clumsy as it could be. He counts that solidly as a win. He’s still a baby and his voice is high and not his own, except it is, but at least he can pronounce words. Mostly. “I can’t feel my chakra. Do you,” He hesitates a second, because that if it’s really gone, “do you know where it is? How I can find it again?” He never had problems like this the first time. He was as much chakra as flesh, and now it was gone. Like missing a limb.

The fox looks thoughtful, tails licking through the air like flames and disturbing the nearly mirrored surface of the water, warm breath washing over him like their red chakra used to. “. . . No.” They say at length.

Naruto perks up. “Buuuuuut?”

“But I’ve been watching you. It’s different here. Your should is here, obviously.” They snort. “But your body . . . ”

Naruto thinks. He thinks of Kurama split in two, of himself split in two in a way. He thinks and he remembers how that feels and it isn’t quite right. He remembers quiet afternoons and Sakura-chan telling him about chakra, about how it works, memory faded almost to translucence and hard to reach. He remembers until he gets a headache, baby brain not designed for this much information but processing ti anyway, because since when did Naruto listen to anything like reasonable limits.

“It’s just my spiritual energy now.” He says, words fragile and unsure.

Kurama looks proud, but not surprised, because Naruto is pretty sure nothing he does will surprise the fox at this point, not since he opened the seal, since he pretty much killed a Goddess, since they both learned all that weird, confusing reincarnation mess. Also, Naruto isn’t stupid. He’s just hands on. He isn’t built for books and sitting around.

“But the coils, the pathways . . . ”

“Spiritual energy alone can’t make those. The air tastes different here. Your body feels -” they snort in frustration, “different. If you can open them again, justour spiritual energy alone can’t do it.” The fox sounds tired.

“Can you open them?” He asks, bouncing in place because no matter what life, what body, he never could sit still.

The fox rolls their shoulders in place in a great big shrug. “My chakra went through your system because of the seal, and it couldn’t get in without something there in the first place.” They eye him sardonically, closing one eye and selling their head onto their big paw hands. “It’s not human chakra, brat.”

Oh, well, that makes sense. Maybe he can use Kurama’s chakra anyway, just different.

He yawns. He thinks he’ll try in the morning though. His brain probably isn’t supposed to be doing all this adult thinking. He walks over, toddles more like but he’s not thinking about that, to Kurama and slumps over, big aw hand shifting to catch him. It’s warm, and it’s safe, and it’s soft, and he closes his eys and slips away.

———

Naruto learns about quirks on tv, on a happy educational program that his Kaa-chan turns on when she makes dinner. The TV is amazing. He had seen them before, but they were a civilian thing and never had much on and sure, movies were awesome, but he had training to do so he could be awesomer. TV here is amazing and theres so much and so many options, he knows because he got ahold of the remote for a while, skimming through channels before he accidentally switched to a horror movie and a loud scream played through the apartment, which was much better than either of his or any of Ero-sensei’s shady hotels or the long line of wartime camps, and Kaa-chan rushed in and very nearly had a panic attack switching it back to something appropriate for his body’s age. She scolded him lightly and put the remote up so high, but she was so concerned about him and so worried and so anxious he wouldn’t have messed with it again anyway. He felt bad for making her, his Kaa-chan, his perfect amazing real not deal for real Kaa-chan, feel like that.

Kids programing is easy enough anyway. Things are so different now that he probably needs it anyway just to understand. So he learns about phones and the internet and countries of this world that holy fucking shit is absolutely massive. He learns about history in bits and pieces and that he should eat his vegetables and he learns about Quirks.

He hasn’t gotten his chakra to work again. Or Kurama’s. Even though every time Kaa-chan can’t see he does push ups and squats and leg lifts and crunches and stretches, with debatable grace sure but he does them. Because despite popular belief, he’s not stupid. And he knows a toddler doing grown up exercise is weird. He can’t get it to work. Dread had started to set in.

But Quirks are amazing. They’re super duper awesome, believe it, and he spends a couple minutes excited because maybe he would get to breathe fire like Sasuke-teme or get super strong like Sakura-chan or do cool stuff with lighting like Kakashi-sensei or grow trees like Yamato-taichou.

And then he learns about Heroes.

There is nothing, Nothing, Naruto has ever wanted more than to be a Hero, than to be the best Hero, other than Hokage. Maybe. Because that dream had been born of pain, of so much pain and so much loneliness and so much determination. And Naruto can read underneath the underneath. He can see that there are bad, dangerous people out there who are using their super cool abilities to hurt people. And Heroes protect people. They defeat villains and they protect people and they don’t have to fight wars that chip away at everything they love or carve their hearts away or hurt-hide-run again and again and again. He may have willfully defied everything he hated about his world, about how shinobi worked, about how their nations were run. But that doesn’t mean he ignored it. He didn’t pretend that this Hero system was very likely anything but super messy and complicated and he was sure there were probably bad parts. But Heroes were all about helping people, the lady on the tv said, and about saving people, and about making things better. They didn’t sound like soldiers. Like killers. Like the bloody, scary, ruthless, super cool shinobi that filled his village’s propaganda, the image that was sold to the kids in his village before they all grew up and figured out that maybe too much of it was true.

Being a Hero sounds different. Not like shinobi heroes, shinobi legends, bloody and vicious who slaughtered legions. It sounds like peace. It sounds hopeful, sounds good. He hopes it’s different from shinobi and war and blood He really does. Because it’s everything Naruto has ever wanted to be and more. And it gives him something to fight for again. Something to protect and a big, bright goal to charge towards. Something he didn’t even know was missing until he sees the pretty Hero lady and hears her talk about what a Hero is.

He tells his Kaa-chan he’s gonna be the best Hero ever. 

———

He meets Kacchan two months later, his third time down at the park.

He sees Kurama’s toothy smile and Sasuke-teme’s red eyes and hair colored like Obaa-chan’s, softly spiky like Ero-sensei’s and he sees innocence and he sees determination and shit, Kacchan is gonna be his best friend whether he wants to be or not.

Red eyes widen when little Izuku tackles him, face stretched into a bright, sunny, determined smile and asks if he wanted to play Hero.

Poor kid never stood a chance.


	2. Making Friends, a Patented Uzumaki Naruto Approach to Any Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to pad the story out so people have something to enjoy, the updates will slow down once I'e got a few chapters out.

Izuku Midoriya is four.

Kacchan got his quirk a couple months ago, bright and smokey and super cool. They had immediately incorporated it into long afternoons playing Hero, which were actually long afternoons playing Ninja but with some extra additions and a couple twists and maybe a bit less pretend-bloodyness, because that was all Naruto really knew how to play. Everyone thought he had the best ideas for games, and the best roles, and the best sneaky plans for pranks and traps, which was kinda unfair because he’d lived a lot longer than the kids he played with. But it was okay, because they had fun splitting into teams and playing academy games.

Izuku has fun too, because when he was Naruto he always watched the other academy kids and the clan kids at the park and on their compounds having fun and laughing and playing. He never got to play. No one wanted to play with him. And fuck, he never got to have a childhood the first time around, not really, and if anybody thought he was going to give that up now that he could have it they were probably too dumb to dodge a kunai. His still young emotions help, and sometimes he can even forget this is a whole different world and he’d been like 20 once and that being a kid again is kinda weird.

Most of the other kids that were regulars at the park have their Quirks now too. Only a couple don’t but they’ll get them soon, they’re all sure. The group use them to play, Izuku carefully guiding them to manipulate their powers in ways that don’t really hurt anyone that bad, but sneaky like. He’s good at sneaky, even if most people who met him don’t think so. He’d had to be good at sneaky, as a kid, as a teenager, durring a war. He’s just extra sneaky, because he doesn’t like people to know he’s sneaky.

He hasn’t figured out his chakra problem, and hasn’t so much given that up as focussed the energy elsewhere. Because he doesn’t give up, believe it, but if it hasn’t happened now and he hasn’t figure that out then he’s better off training his body until he has a breakthrough. He also hasn’t gotten a Quirk yet. Some of the other kids have made fun of him, but it hasn’t really hurt. Because he’s a shinobi at heart, and he knows that even people without chakra like Lee and who hadn’t used it like Gai had been amazing, more amazing than most people. So even if he gets a really lame Quirk and not a super strong one like the super amazing All Might it’ll be okay because he’ll just train really hard like them. Also because he had been like 20 once and he’d lived most of that being called a lot worse than useless by people who could back it up a lot better than a group of three to seven year olds.

But his Kaa-chan is worried too, and that makes him sad.

They’re at the doctors now. The doctor looks really sad and guilty and dismissive in a way that almost stings because it almost reminds him of people who had dismissed and hated him a long, long time ago. But it doesn’t, because he’d proved them all wrong. Many times. And he’ll do it all a fucking gain, believe it.

The doctor has an xray up, and is explaining that weird toes meant he’ll never get a Quirk. Izuku swings his feet between the legs of the plastic chair. It seems kinda dumb to him, but then so did most medical stuff, even back before he was reborn or whatever. Kaa-chan looks like she’s about to cry though and like she’s trying really, really hard not to. Her hand hovers around her mouth, and she looks at him like she’s scared he’d crumble, like medic nin did after genin’s first kill. He smiles up at her, big as he can.

“It’s okay Kaa-chan.” He gives her his best I Can Do It smile. “I’m still gonna be a super strong Hero, like All Might, I just gotta train extra hard okay?”

The doctor scoffs, quietly.

Izuku hears it anyway, and his Kaa-chan does too because she starts shaking a little, and he tells the doctor to fuck off.

Kaa-chan tries really hard to pretend she’s mad, after she gets done choking on her own spit.

———

The park wis crowded today. Kacchan runs up right away, because last time they hadn’t had enough players for the Heroes to face off in an epic battle to catch the runaway Princess and her cunning bodyguards who thought the Heroes were really Evil Villain Kidnappers who wanted to kill the Princess to steal her country and stop her from using her super strong Quirk to end an endless winter . . . Okay so he’s blatantly plagiarizing events of old missions and twisting them up a bit. Sue him. But they hadn’t had players, so Kacchan had gotten grumpy and then nearly Sasuke-teme level angry, except Izuku said that meant they could play Hero Tag, which was really Ninja Tag, which was normal tag but sneakier and everyone was it.

Izuku is thinking though. He’s thinking about whether he should tell Kacchan about the doctor. It’ll come out anyway. But . . . He’s heard how the other kids say the word Quirkless. It isn’t nice. He doesn’t care about them, at all, not really. But Kacchan is one of his precious people. He remembers how Sasuke looked at him before he had proved how strong he was. He remembers when they met again, years later, and Sasuke looked at him like he was nothing. He remembers how Sasuke left because he hadn’t trusted his team to be strong enough, and didn’t come back because he didn’t change his mind until Naruto proved it to him, that they could be strong together.

All the kids love to talk about Quirks. Ever since Kacchan got his, he started to get meaner, and angrier, and colder to people with weak Quirks or “villainous”. This world looks at Quirks like his had at Clans and Kekkei Genkai and it burns in the back of this throat sometimes, how he just wants to yell and yell because he knew, knows, so many amazing, awesome, incredible shinobi who had started with nothing, or started hated, or started feared. But he doesn’t because . . . What would he say? He isn’t good with words, not like the Sakura-chan is. He doesn’t have Lee or Sakura or Gaara to beat people up and prove them wrong.

So, he’ll have to prove it then. No matter what he’s gonna be the best, strongest Hero ever. With a Quirk or without one.

He tells Kacchan.

———

Things take a while to come to a head. It’s a week before school starts and Katsuki has had enough of stupid weak Deku saying stupid things. He’s wrong. He can’t be a Hero without a Hero Quirk, like the one he has.

So he tells him. Alone nearly at dusk at the back of the park in the trees, shouting and snarling and ranting until -

“Okay.” Deku says, with the biggest, stupidest, sharpest smile. “I’ll prove it.”

“WHAT?!”

“Beat me.”

Katsuki doesn’t think. Katsuki charges, sweating from running around all day and ready to use it all to grind this stupid, weak nerd to dust.

Deku takes a hit to the face and gets up screaming.

They fight for a long time, both bruised and burned and bleeding and aching until Katsuki can’t fight anymore, collapsing to the ground. Everything is shaking. Everything hurts. He’s not sure he can move on his own now. Deku walks over to him, huffing out breath, face never breaking from that sharp, dangerous, fox grin. The little bruise on the side of his face from Katsuki’s first hit is just starting to darken.

“See?” Deku demands, voice heavy with determination, eyes blazing. In the bright pre dusk sun, he looks like he’s glowing.

Katsuki sees. Katsuki is the one who’s weak, who’s useless, loosing to a Quirkless loser. His throat stings and he refuses to cry, he refuses. If his Quirk's really that weak he -

Deku laughs, sheepish and proud and happy. “You’re really strong too. That punch was super awesome.”

Katsuki blinks. His punch? Not his Quirk?

Deku offers him a hand, face almost lost in the bright orange yellow streaming in through the trees. The forest around them is pretty wrecked. They’re near the edge now, with all the running around driving them closer. “I’m gonna be a Hero, the best Hero ever, no matter what, believe it.” He says the words like they’re true. A drop of blood from his split knuckles falls off the hand reaching out to him. “We’re gonna be great Heroes, together.”

Deku smiles at him like he can make anything happen. Like he can tear down anything in his way. Like there’s nothing in the world that could stop him, no matter how hard or how impossible or how much he shouldn’t be able to, because he doesn’t have a Quirk, and somehow that doesn’t even matter.

Katsuki believes him.

Two warm, bloody, burnt palms meet. It feels invincible. It feels like the beginning of something. Deku is gonna be the best, and if he’s gonna be the best, then Katsuki has to be the best too, because there is no way he’s gonna let this brilliant, impossible boy leave him behind.

Their mothers are furious.

The nightly news reports a villain attack in the park, given the level of damage. Their mothers are frantic.

Neither boy says anything. And despite the bandages and the three broken fingers and one twisted ankle and the dislocated shoulder and the pulled muscles and the scuffs and the rock induced stab wound and burns that will scar the both of them and the sheer exhaustion, neither stop smiling either.

———

Kacchan is kicking the shit out of a 12 year old with a pretty cool lizard quirk who’d called Izuku weak, then said Izuku must be holding Kacchan back so he’s gotta be weak too. Literally kicking too. Izuku doesn’t stop him, cause Kacchan and he are both pretty buff for 6 year olds, but they’re still 6. He shouldn’t be able to do any permanent damage with the kid curled up in a ball. So long as he doesn’t find ay weapons.

Everyone is avoiding them, right now. Even the 12 year old’s friend who has super awesome crab hands. Once Kacchan calms down they’ll stop though. It’s break and everyone’s super excited, because Izuku pinky promised he’d come up with a super cool game of Hero for them all to play. Weirdly, it feels like Kohohamaru all over again, sometimes. Even the kids who don’t want to be Heroes anymore and older kids like playing. Kaa-chan is super proud of him for having so many friends. And he’s having fun too. They’re going to be playing Hero Exams, which are blatantly his own Chuunin exams, except no fighting at the end and Capture the Hostage (Flag, except a person, because that’ll be more fun) instead. He wonders sometimes why Kakashi-sensei hated teaching so much. It’s not that hard.

There’s an itch on the back of his neck, because for everything he’s lost he still has shinobi senses, shinobi instincts. A kid is watching, from the sidelines, half hidden behind a bench. He’s Izuku’s age, his body’s age at least, and oh -

Oh. His eyes, they look like Gaara’s. Like his.

That’s never good.

So, he’ll have to fix it. He runs over, bright smile one his face, and waves.

The kid withers behind the bench, but tufts of hair peaks out with a single eye and one hand gripping the side. Kinda like Hinata-chan, before she went from super cool to mega awesome. It’s unfairly cute.

“Hi! My name is Izuku! Do you wanna play?” His words are fast, almost running into one another and he bounces on his heels.

The boy mumbles something too quiet for him to hear.

“Eh?” Izuku wrinkles his brow together.

The boy takes a deep breath. “Okay.” Its a soft word, half broken, a little scared, mostly just confused.

“Cool!” He pumps a fist in the air and laughs. “What’s your Quirk? If you have one, it’s okay if you don’t too! See cause you haven’t met anyone yet, so if you tell me then I can help you pick the best team.” He nods as fast as he can. He can see the boy’s head spinning a bit, behind shuttered eyes. But that’s kinda half the plan anyway. Just keep things moving until they start losing balance and either start having fun or start letting the bad thoughts bubble up so he can kick their ass! Patented Naruto Uzumaki plan that he will stand by any day.

The kid shifts like he’s gonna run off, tugging purple hair away from purple eyes with white pupils that reminds him even more of Hinata-chan, and talks like he’s grinding his fist against concrete. “Brainwashing. I make people do things.”

And okay, he doesn’t know all the details yet but - “Awesome! That’s so cool! Believe it! I bet it’s super useful too! Can you help people with stage fright? I think Kacchan gets it sometimes cause he gets all tense and mean and he won’t say he does cause that would be silly for someone so cool, but it’s okay, I bet all sorts of Heroes get stage fright. But then he starts yelling about how he super duper doesn’t.” Izuku babbles, he thinks of how many lives that could have saved. How valuable an extra minute, an extra second was. He thinks of Sasuke-teme running himself back to the village and of enemies spilling their secrets. He thinks of just asking Kakashi-sensei to give him the bells and he thinks about attacks that could have been deflected before thy landed, of comrades saved. He thinks about all the secrets and lies and about Danzo freezing long enough that they can destroy him. He thinks about collateral damage, and how much there shouldn’t have been.

And then his thoughts snap in another direction, because the kid looks like he just took a punch to the gut, for real. He’s shaking. And Izuku realizes this is a “Villain Quirk” because people are stupid and too easily scared and feels like punching something because ugh people are stupid.

He doesn’t.

He snatches the kid’s hand up with a bright, to bright, up to max smile, and drags the stumbling little bundle of painful similarities back to the group thats gathered around Kacchan because they think he has secret inside knowledge of Izuku's games and Izuku had disappeared for a bit.

“Kacchan look he’s gonna play with us too! His Quirk is super cool, believe it.” Izuku can feel the kid panicking, trying to tug himself away, scrambling, and grips harder and charges ahead. “Super duper cool! Its called Brainwashing.” The kid is shaking, all eyes are on them, he tries to pull away weakly and Izuku does not let go because they’re friends now, he’s decided, and he helps his friends.

Kacchan frowns and grunts, but it’s his thinking frown and his begrudgingly cool grunt. Izuku smiles bigger and his cheeks would start to hurt now, but he’s like this all the time so his muscles are used to it.

“That’s a Villain Quirk, is he gonna play the Villain then.” One kid asks, a boy whose quirk is blowing bubbles, which reminds his a little of Saiken every time.

The kid behind him is frozen like he’s ground down into the dirt and Izuku can almost feel him trying to shrink into himself. He’s not having any of that today though, nuh uh.

“Nuh uh,” Izuku adopts his best thinking pose, hand on his chin and face screwed up. “Cause its super Heroic see . . . ” He lets the pause drag on, all eyes are on him, anxiously anticipating his glorious wisdom “he can make a Villain pull his pants down.”

The kid splutters a choked laugh, almost half a sob and yeah he’s gonna be this kid’s best friend and drag Kacchan in too and then he’ll have the best, strongest friends ever and no one will ever bully him again. Just you watch.

“He could make a Villain just walk right into jail and close the door!”

“He could make a Villain pee his pants!”

“He could make a Villain expose his real identity right there!”

“He could make a Villain punch himself in the face!”

“Or not use his Quirk anymore!”

“Or, or, or do all his chores!”

“I wish I had a Quirk like that. Then I could be like a super cool PI Hero! I’d solve lots of mysteries!”

“He could just say to confess and then the Villain would!”

The kids took it up on their own, trading ideas that were getting weirder and wilder each go around, some looking at him with big star struck eyes.

Izuku lets go, and turns to the kid with a big, bright, sharp fox grin. He’s crying, but Izuku pretends he doesn’t hear the sniffle or see the balled hands scrubbing at his cheeks. No one’s gonna be alone or hated or feared or looked down on because of their Quirk, not while he’s around, believe it.

Then he laughs sheepishly, overhearing and ignoring Kacchan’s idea that the new kid could just tell the Villain to go die already with the ease of practice and long desensitization to violence and death. He wonders if he’s a bad influence. “Hey, haha, I’m sorry, I forgot to ask, what’s your name?”

The kid blinks at him like he’s just asked the weirdest, most out there question in the world. He waits. 

One beat. Two beats.

“Idiot.” Kacchan growls, at him and not the kid or there might be a problem. “Useless dumbfuck.” Izuku wonders, absently, where he learned that word and if his house has a swear jar. Kacchan turns to the new kid. “Tell me your name.” He demands.

“Pleaseee.” Izuku wheedles.

The kid looks at Izuku, then at Kacchan, then back at Izuku. “Hitoshi.” He mumbles, syllables falling almost monotone.

“Hiya, Toshi!” Izuku grins, half fox sharp and half bright and happy, “I’m Izuku and this is Kacchan!” He nods at Kacchan.

“It’s Katsuki, Deku.” Kacchan isn’t pouting because he doesn’t pout. Obviously

“You’re gonna be on our team.” He nods like the decision is made. Behind him, someone yells that they want him. Kacchan starts sparking and they shut up. Toshi looks lost and a little scared and pretty overwhelmed and he shuffles until he’s half hiding behind Izuku which is adorable.

He turns to the crowd, and tries to look intimidating. It works pretty well, even in a 6 year old body, because he was a commander once and maybe it doesn’t help that he can still generate a mild killing intent that he dulls down even more, because they’re kids, and he deosn’t want anyone to have to leave because they peed their pants.

He grins bloody, like Anko and Zabuza and Yamato-taichou. “So this is how it’s gonna go.” He whips a small stack of papers out from the light summer jacket that he’d worn just for this dramatic reveal. The kids look intimidated. And determined. Good.

Now all he has to do is teach Toshi how to spot really obvious cheating.

He wonders, not for the first time, as he starts to explain the rules, how many kids he’s convinced to be Heroes, and how many he’s given a huge and maybe kinda unfair leg up on the competition.


	3. Not a Perfect World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER:  
> Violence, unimportant character death, murder of said unimportant character, trauma, injuries done unto children, emeto (vomit), blood but not like gore, consensual arm dislocation, hospitals, human trafficking mention, attempted kidnapping. Not in that order.  
> This one is suspenseful. And, you know, it is a Naruto fanfic too and that show isn't exactly morally upright or very peaceful and is chock a block full of complicated and trauma loaded themes. You can skip it after the first section if you want, and I'll put an important facts bit at the end for if you do.

Katsuki is seven and wonders, sometimes, if Deku’s Quirk is his people skills. He knows it isn’t, not really, because that would be stupid and because he feels the dame about Deku all the time, even when he’s not with him. And because not even the nerd could control a Quirk that well that fast.

He’s doing his fifth lap around the park, watching Deku talk to one of the kids clustered around a board game. The nerd is jogging in place. His eyes sweep over the rest of the kids around the picnic tables. Some are chatting, others involved in various intense and weird contests. He puts his head down and picks up the pace. He thinks about the fights over who was going to play Hero and and who was going to play Villain that stretched so long that for a week, they barely got to play anything at all. And he remembers Deku showing up with a jar of sticks and a list of super weird stuff. Fighting, board games, rock paper scissors, camouflage, bubble blowing, number guessing, coolest fact, flower arranging, running laps. Nonsense shit. Winners got to be Heroes. Losers are Villains. And fuck it, it worked. No more fighting. And everyone got better, at specific stuff, at all of it, whatever. He’d seen the others trading off so they could show off if they were really good at something.

Katsuki wonders, sometimes, if Deku has a plan for all this shit. It doesn’t seem like it. Most of the time. But sometimes the little shit smiles until his eyes are slits, all teeth and savage victory, and Katsuki wonders. Sometimes, this all feels like more.

Hitoshi isn’t far behind him, breathing heavier than hm but still pushing on determinedly. Deku doesn’t have to do laps today. He’s still jogging in place. Like a lunatic.

He hears Deku laugh, bright and brilliant, and remembers him laughing like that with his ankle all bandaged up to match Katsuki’s shoulder, black eye covering at least a third of his face, two fingers set in splints, winy and wrapped up and bounding up and down and never asking him to apologize for anything, for any of it, even if he definitely should have. They beat the shit out of each other, and how they’re friends forever. Still makes him embarrassingly warm an squishy even though it’s been like two years now and he should be over it.

Deku never asks him to call him by his name again either, laughing like it’s their secret cool inside joke when he yells it because the stupid nerd won or did something dumber than usual or snuck up on him again. He never asks the idiot to call him anything else either, because this is theirs. Kacchan is a baby name, but Deku doesn’t think he’s a baby, so it’s okay if he uses it.

He thinks about Hitoshi trembling in fear he can almost smell and then in awe. He wonders if that was on purpose too.

He wonders if he’ll ever figure it out.

He wonders if Deku even knows.

He lets Hitoshi pass him just to sweep a leg out from under him and pass again, laughing. Hitoshi gets up and throws a rock at him, which smarts a bit as it bounces off the back of his head. He can hear light chuckles behind him fade for a second before the other kid starts forward again, picking up the pace. They’re friends too, in a weird way. Different from Deku, but then everything’s different from Deku. Hitoshi never asks him to quiet down (he can’t, he doesn’t know how people choose how loud they are, he can’t even tell the difference when he speaks), or be less competitive (it’s fun and it feels good to win and when he loses it feels good to have something to work towards), or stop protecting everything that’s his (mostly with his teeth). He doesn’t ask Hitoshi to talk more (he thinks maybe Hitoshi can’t speak at all sometimes), or pretend he’s not scared (how’s he gonna know who to hurt for making his friends feel bad if they hide that they’re feeling bad), or to stop avoiding everything all the time (mostly grown ups and loud noises, but it’s okay because Katsuki is bigger than Hitoshi so he can hide behind him if he needs to).

Hitoshi called him Kacchan once, last week, all weird and quiet and still and Katsuki would almost say scared but they’re friends so he can’t be scared of him, that’s ridiculous. And he didn’t fry him within an inch of his life, just huffed a little. He feels like that’s all he needs to say.

———

Izuku is eight, almost nine, when he kills someone for the first time. Naruto killed people, not often and never when it wasn’t necessary, but he’d done it. He hated it then, but he did it without flinching because that was what a shinobi did. He’s still too much a shinobi now, something he really doubts he’ll ever shake. He still doesn’t flinch.

They’re cutting through an alley home. It’s not dark yet, just pre dusk enough that the sky is greying and the shadows are thickening but it isn’t dark quite yet. Toshi and Kacchan are coming with him because it’s not a school night and he will happily admit he thinks sleepovers are the best ever. He keeps to himself that as his brain grows he remembers more, more vividly. He keeps to himself that sometimes when he wakes in the dark, half from sleep so light it almost couldn’t be counted disturbed by light creaking or tapping from their upstairs or downstairs neighbors, and half gasping awake like he’s drowning from nightmares that leave vague impressions of desperation and failure and blood and dirt and sweat at the back of his throat, and it’s just him there alone he has to stop himself from driving the knife he keeps under his pillow into his leg to prove this is real, into the eye on an enemy that’s just the shadows of his adjusting eyes, stop himself from diving out the window to safety before he can remember truly that he doesn’t have chakra to help him stick to the walls or brace his landing. Two softly breathing forms ground him quicker than anything he can do alone ever could. But he doesn’t say this, because what would he say, how could he explain.

They’re cutting through the alley and a man, a shadow, snaps out an arm and hits Kacchan in the chest like a sledgehammer. Izuku presses himself against the wall, nearly scared but falling into old patterns too quick to be, and watches dark eyes dismiss him with a sneer. He’s used to being dismissed. Quirkless and therefore harmless, a stupid mistake. He’s eight, and he’s built for eight, but he’s still eight. This man is easily twice his height and twice his weight and he has a length of metal pipe in one hand and he has to be careful. Toshi is frozen, choking on his words audibly.

The man makes a half swing at him, a threat, and laughs. “You’ll shut up if you know what’s good for you.”

Kacchan might be concussed if not knocked out, because he doesn’t say anything and there ar no bright blooms of light and sweet smoke , so reassuring pop pop pop of badly repressed rage. The man turns and squats over Kacchan, fishing in an inside pocket of his jacket.

“Got lucky here.” The shadow laughs to himself. “Most kids don’t play with their quirks out in the open like that. Lucky me, I found something worth selling. Two expensive brats and a blank canvas.”

Izuku’s mind stutters. Quirk trafficking. He thinks of Sai. He thinks of Danzo. He think os the Kiri Purges and Hinata in a sack and Orochimaru. Something in him he hasn’t felt in eight long years burns. Fury, true fury, the kind that brought down Gaara and Nagato and that had earned him the only scar he carried with him for most of his life, a branching nest of lighting and bulging pink and white over his heart because he was too furious to dodge. The kind that used to call up Kurama’s power without thought when he still had a body with fucking chakra pathways.

He will not let his friends be taken.

He has a kitchen knife in his pocket, long and heavy because being without a weapon feels wrong now that the real horror of his old life has started to etch itself in. If the anatomy in this world is the same, if this man’s quirk doesn’t mess his insides around, then Naruto knows just where to strike between the ribs to reach the heart. He gives himself once breath to steady his shaking, rage and fear that isn’t for himself and is for his friends, his team.

He lunges, silent, feels Toshi’s eyes on him and ignores them and pushes the blade in deep and twists and pulls it out and keeps it ready just in case, just in case that wasn’t his heart, in case his aim is wrong or the anatomy is wrong. The man lurches around, pipe swinging where Naruto definitely isn’t stupid enough to still be standing. For half a breath he thinks he got it wrong.

The man collapses, crumples to the ground like the wet sack of meat he is now, or will be soon.

He breathes out, tentatively, and waits a beat. Then another. He needs a phone, needs this man’s phone because he doesn’t have one but like hell he’s touching a man who might still be alive enough to be a threat when he’s the only thing protecting them right now. He puts his knife close enough to the throat that if the man moves he can make sure he doesn’t get up again. He has to turn him over to find the phone, jacket pinned under his body since he’d collapsed face first into the concrete, hands slipping and bloody and refusing to let go of the knife to get a better grip.

He call the emergency line stammering out something that incoherent less than half from shock and more because he knows, he’s a shinobi and he knows, that children shouldn’t be cold blooded killers. He shouldn’t be able to brush this off as an eight year old civilian who has never seen war, never fought for his life and for his people just to survive. His body agrees with that sentiment even if his mind doesn’t, painted too red for too long.

He stammers out something about a kidnapper and a bad man and blood and so much blood and a knife and where they are and he’s only half paying attention, really. He drops the phone, the voice on the other end is panicked but he should be hearing sirens soon and that’s all that matters.

He smiles at Toshi, who’s trembling, knees up to his chest, hands clamped over his mouth like they’re welded there and tears down his cheeks. He doesn’t think it’s as reassuring as he would really like it to be. But Kacchan is hurt and he’s hurt and he needs help first.

A blonde head almost flops to the side as he gets nearer, red eyes barely visible behind blonde hair cast in silhouette by the shadows of the alley.

“Kacchan?” He cups his friend’s face in one hand, red eyes skittering over him like they can’t quite find purchase. “Kacchan I need you to stay awake. Help’s coming Kacchan okay so you gotta stay night here, right here with me.” His voice is soft, unwinding like threads and fraying, not as calm as he need sit to be. Kacchan is hurt, some kind of head wound, and he can’t fix that. He remembers a shinobi with a half concave skull dying in his arms after the battle was over, waiting for the medics. She’d drawn fire from the group and taken out all her opponents but one whose head Naruto had turned around like a doll, desperate to get to his downed comrade. She’d saved so many in that ambush.

“You can’t leave Kacchan, if you leave you wont ever get to beat me.” He doesn’t sob but he hears it in his voice. His eyes are clear, because tears mean the split second between life and death. Kacchan still hasn’t said anything. “Come on, you’re stronger than me, you gotta prove that right? I beat you last time. You gotta grind me into the dirt the next time.”

Kacchan slurs out something that sounds aggressive, and throws up all over himself. Naruto almost laughs, head foggy with relief, and gently feels the back of Kacchan’s head to check if there’s bleeding. There is, he doesn’t know how bad, and he applies as much pressure as he’s comfortable with. He hears sirens.

He also hear footsteps at the mouth of the alley. Fast, swish of fabric ducking and fluttering. He sees red eyes glowing in the dark and long, messy hair and he has a knife in his hands and he throws it. He doesn’t know if it’s the surprise or the movement or the angle or the fact that he’s a kid but it hits, lodging itself in a shoulder half turned out of the way a second too late. He hadn’t been aiming for a shoulder, but it’s probably a good thing his aim is a little off. A very good thing. He recognizes the man two beats later, a Hero, and his shoulders slump. The man’s face is blank. He doesn’t take the knife out and tries not to move the shoulder, smart, as he approaches just a tad more cautiously. He doesn’t seem to see Toshi, who’s half in cover behind some mess of trash bins, tucked into the same corner the man had hid in and Naruto is proud for a split second that even paralyzed by fear he thought to find cover, to hide, to get safe.

He sees the body though, eyes open to the sky and utterly empty. Naruto can’t find it in himself to be mad that some part of him is pleased. The Hero pauses, and turns away, back to them.

The man, Eraserhead, not Madara, not Obito, not Itachi, crouches down. He gestures to his shoulder lazily. “Lucky shot there kid.” It’s cynical and dry and most definitely not the right thing to say to an actual child. Naruto laughs, a choking snort that evolves into a heaving chuckle. Sounds a bit like he’s going to throw up.

“He’s dead.” Naruto says, a little breathless, after the chuckling subsides with all the grace of a sharp dive off a tall cliff.

The only light inside the alley is the phone, still lit up from the call, man still babbling emptily on the other end, bloody smears diluting the light and shading spots of it red.

Kacchan says something, words forced out angrily around a heavy tongue and near entirely incomprehensible. It sounds very much like a death threat. Eraserhead’s eyes are drawn quicker than his own, because he’s watching the Hero, but he starts speaking before his eyes move. “If you stay awake until the ambulance gets here I’ll . . .” He thinks of anything he can say that’ll be persuasive enough and he knows he’s thinking like a shinobi and not a civilian but he says it anyway, “dislocate my arm next time I do something stupid.”

Kacchan’s grunt is almost a purr and Naruto doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t, but some hysterical part of him thinks Kacchan would have made the best shinobi.

This does not comfort Eraserhead at all.

Toshi, finally, sobs. Naruto doesn’t look, doesn’t turn his head, but he can tell a lot just by the sound. Choked, wet sobs muffled by two hands around his mouth and chin. Naruto is so, so sorry he had to see this. He’s not shaking, because he has a shinobi’s composure, but it hurts and he’s so, so sorry. He’s a kid, an innocent, he should be shaking, should be reacting to this. He lets himself start, trembling arms and shoulder and legs, but it doesn’t reach his hands, one on Kacchan’s cheek and the other in his hair and wet with blood. There are things more important than what he should be doing and Kacchan is one of those things.

“I’m sorry Toshi.” His voice shakes, and it’s less of an act than he’d like to admit. He looks at red eyes glaring up at him, desperate and hurt and furious, until he can’t until he can almost see them spinning tomoe and he can’t and he has to watch the brick instead. He hears choking and gurgling and hears Eraserhead move and toshi whine like he’s dying and wet hitting the concrete and the scent of bile gets stronger. He’s so sorry.

He can see lights in his peripherals, eyes moving slowly from shadowed brick to Eraserhead as he pick Toshi up with his good arm. He can he cars breaking hard and Eraserhead’s silhouette blocks the light from the street as he slides out of the alley. He hears voices, but all he can see now is the blood on Kacchan’s cheek and he feels awful, because they both had to see that. Even if there wasn’t another way, they both had to see that. He hopes Kacchan’s head wound is bad enough that he won’t remember.

Kacchan starts growling at him.

“It’s okay Kacchan, the doctors are here. It’s going to be okay.” He says, voice firmer than it’s been all evening and relieved.

One clumsy hand knots itself into the side of his shirt and Kacchan growls again. This one is possessive, he recognizes it.

He laughs and doesn’t try to remove the hand, doesn’t even think about it. The doctors have to take them out together, because Kacchan bites deep into the arm of the first paramedic who tries to untangle them, moving surprisingly quick and screaming as he latches on. They don’t panic much, to their credit, and Kacchan only lets go because he has to vomit again. Which he does on the paramedic and not on Naruto, and he’s hilariously grateful for that.

The patch them up at the hospital. He isn’t hurt, really. Apparently he’d cut himself a little trying to flip an adult corpse over with a knife on one hand and he hadn’t noticed. But it isn’t big, doesn’t even need many stitches. Kacchan starts frothing the moment Naruto is more than five feet away, though, so the doctors do the smart thing. Apparently the head wound isn’t that bad, busted open more because the brick was rough and sharp than because of how hard he hit the wall. He’d been hit in the chest by the pipe though, and had bit his tongue enough for it to swell up pretty nastily. Nasty combo, especially short term, but not life threatening and not even truly that serious. They give Kacchan some of the nice pain meds and leave, because he hasn’t said a word and Kacchan is out. It’s probably a busy night. He doesn’t see Toshi for a while, he’s not sure how long. There’s a clock, but he doesn’t look. His eyes are pinned to the door.

The boy comes in with Eraserhead on his heels, brows scrunched up over purple eyes and looking like he’s about to commit the murder Naruto actually had and he freezes when he sees them, for a moment. Naruto pats the end of Kacchan’s bed, where he’s sitting cross legged even though he has a bed of his own because the press of their legs together, even through the thin hospital blankets, reassures him his friend is alive. Toshi moves as fast as he’s ever seen the boy, hesitating once he’s there and Naruto curls the hand that isn’t squeezing Kacchan’s in purple hair and tugs him down, head on his lap. His fingers scratch lightly, and Toshi is still stiff.

“No one can hurt you now.” Naruto says like he means it, like he’ll tear apart anyone who tries. Like the man who commanded armies because it’s been so long since he’s been like this and he can’t seem to let it fall away, can’t find his way to Izuku again or even to the man he’d been once the battle fell away and the sentries had been set. Once it was him and his precious people and a good meal and awful gossip. He can’t shake off the urge to bare his teeth and cloak himself in chakra even if he doesn’t and can’t and a bit distantly he realizes that’s why. Because he can’t feel the warm weight of his chakra in his veins, in the air, shrouding him and buzzing like the static of cyclones.

Eraserhead notices, red eyes pinning him with a look that’s almost casual and that probably would have been if he wasn’t a shinobi, hadn’t know Kakashi for so long. He resists the strong pull to curl his lips and show this man his fangs. Barely. Because impulse control has never been his strong suit. But he doesn’t really care that the man is looking at him like that because he feels Toshi crumble piece by piece until the taller, slimmer boy is folded in his lap and around Kacchan, back turned to Eraserhead to manage it and Naruto smiles because these are his precious people and if he has to tear someone’s throat out with his teeth because that’s all he has right about now he will. Because they trust him to keep them safe.

Eraserhead sits down on the other bed. In the fluorescent light, he looks exhausted. Naruto’s seen nicer corpses. He also has his shoulder bandaged, and Naruto only tries so hard to smother the laugh in his throat. He doesn’t do a very good job. Eraserhead relaxes, a little, shoulders slumping. For a moment, Naruto looks at him and sees Kakashi. He blinks and it's gone, but he doesn’t forget and it’s easier to meet red eyes head on after that.

“He wouldn’t say anything.” Eraserhead says, when the air gets a little less heavy.

Naruto smiles again, warmer but not bright, not shining, proud and worried and his fingers dig deeper into Toshi’s hair. “His Quirk,” he starts, words folding off his tongue heavy and wary, “he controls people, sometimes. When he wants to.” His eyes drill into Eraserhead but the only thing that changes in his face is soft understanding, like pieces clicking together. Naruto finishes his statement. “The man said he should be quiet.”

Eraserhead’s eyes flash with something like hate, still watching Toshi’s now trembling form. He says nothing. Then he takes a breath. “Can you tell be your names? We need to notify your parents.”

Naruto can respect that. He thinks he can respect this man. Against his leg, Toshi shakes his head so shallowly he’s nearly sure Eraserhead missed it, especially with his hand still moving. It’s enough for Naruto. He knows how to shut up about something. “My name’s Izuku Midoriya and that’s Katsuki Bakugou.”

Eraserhead nods. “And the boy in your lap?”

Naruto says nothing. Nothing they can legally do to him would make him talk and unless they’ve got some sort of super secret truth serum, he doubts any interrogation experts they had would even get close to making him have a single second thought on he matter. Not, he reminds himself, that they would set any of those on a civilian child. This country might not even have interrogation experts, not like his village had.

“We need to let his family know, so they don’t worry.” He tries.

Naruto stares him down flat. By the lack of wilting, he figures that’s either not as impressive as it used to be or Eraserhead has bigger balls than most of the chuunin he’s met and a fair portion fo the jounin.

“There are medical reasons too, it’s important we know. None of you are in any trouble.” He wheedles.

Toshi shakes his head again. Naruto doesn't need to know why. “I don’t know it.” He shrugs.

“But you know his Quirk?” Eraserhead raises an eyebrow. He’s sure he’s supposed to be intimidated. He isn’t.

He shrugs again, eyes sharp like broken glass. “I don’t know it.”

Eraserhead sighs, deeply. Naruto doesn’t even fight a snicker. It sounds exactly like the sigh of a genin team that just got another Tora D rank.

“I’ll get someone to call your parents.” He leaves.

He comes back half an hour later, roughly, with an armful of chips and little wrapped up vending machine pastries and a couple flavored milks. None of them have moved. Naruto’s pretty sure Toshi’s asleep now though and he’s starting to feel a but more like Izuku now that his friends are here and his friends are safe. There’s an officer behind him with a cool trench coat and a notepad. Eraserhead lays the food next to him like an offering and sits back down on the other bed. The man stared the officer into doing the same.

“The nice officer is here to talk to you about what happened.” Eraserhead nods at him, eyes gentle and speech a bit clumsy. Probably not used to dealing with kids then.

The officer glares at him and turns back to Naruto. “I’m detective Tsukauchi, none of you are in any trouble. I just want to know what happened. Can you tell me?” His voice was soft and even.

Naruto nods and speaks low, almost a whisper. “Just be quiet please. They need to sleep.”

The officer nods and Eraserhead watches him like Kakashi-sensei watches Sasuke. He’s not sure what it means and right now he doesn’t really feel like guessing.

“We were walking home. My home. We were gonna have a sleepover.” He smiles at the two men and Tsukauchi hides a wince well but not well enough. He feel like this is gonna wreck the man, and only feels a little guilt for it. “There’s a shortcut, through this alley. It was getting dark and I wanted to get home before Kaa-chan started worrying. So we went down. The man stepped out of,” he shrugs, “the shadows I guess, didn’t really see. But he hit Kacchan. And he threatened -” he nods to his friend wrapped up in his lap and on top of Kacchan’s legs. Eraserhead twitches half a smile at the lack of a name. “He barely look at me. I don’t have a Quirk. He was watching us at the park, he said, so I guess he saw.”

There are two sharp intakes, one much better concealed than the other. He’s not sure what part of that information is the most concerning, to them. It’s about 50/50 no Quirk and stalker.

“He thought I couldn’t hurt him. But I had a knife. He were doing paper cutting games today. I guess I was lucky.” He frowns. Lucky he had an excuse. Kids carrying around kitchen knives was weird. Not illegal. But it would be very weird for him to do without a good reason and seeing as he’d just killed a man, he was trying to avoid weird.

“He crouched down over Kacchan. He said something. He was going to sell us.” He looks at one pair of aching eyes and another hard like grinding stone. “He was going to sell us for our Quirks.”

He takes a breath and can’t keep the rage out of his voice. “He was going to hurt us more and sell us and I had a knife and I -” He shrugs, he looks at his friends. “I’m sorry.” He says. And he is. Not to the man, or the people who had to clean up, or out of any twisted sense of morality that would have said being sold was better than defending his friends and his life. He’s sorry, he’s so, so sorry that his friends had to see that.

The room is silent, for a little while.

“I don’t have a phone.” Naruto says, and he lets his voice shake, lets his hair hang down over his eyes. It’s not an act, mostly. His young body isn’t handling this well and he’s refused to leave Kacchan long enough to wash off the blood. He’s in a hospital gown, so at least he doesn’t have stiffly bloody fabric drying onto his skin. It isn’t much of a consolation prize. Baby wipes haven’t done nearly enough to remove browning streaks and the scent of blood and the stiff feeling on his skin. “But grown ups have phones. I had to turn him over to find it.” Eraserhead winces harder than the officer, he notes in his periphery, watching Kacchan’s chest rise and fall steadily. “I called for help. You came first though.” He looks at Eraserhead, sheepish even as he starts to tear up, remembering the blood on Kacchan’s cheek and Toshi almost choking on his own vomit to keep his mouth covered. He laughs a little wetly. “Lucky shot?” He says like it’s a joke, even if he kinda knows it has to be true, because you can’t possibly be a Pro Hero if you can’t dodge a fucking knife.

Eraserhead answers him with the smallest grin. “Lucky shot.” He agrees gently.

“Sorry. I hope I didn’t hit anything important?”

Eraserhead stretches his shoulder gently. “Nothing I can’t live without.”

It’s almost a joke. He laughs anyway. Tsukauchi looks like he disapproves but he looks too shaken to say anything.

“You - ah - it seems like you were very luck tonight.” The officer offers him a very weak smile. “What you did was very brave. You were lucky you hit where you did, he’s in surgery now and all of you should be able to walk out of here just fine tomorrow.”

Naruto tastes blood and bile in the air, the stench of the tiny alley, remembers dead eyes and knows exactly where he hit. He looks the man in the eyes. “He’s dead.” The man flinches like he was struck and Naruto wonders what dead shinobi eyes look like on a child, except he knows, and he tries not to remember. “I moved him. I checked. He’s dead.”

The officer can’t meet his eyes.

Eraserhead can. “He’s dead.” He says, in a soft, rough voice. He looks at the man and he knows. He knows he understands. At least in bits and pieces, he understands. He sees that the Hero is mourning for something in him that he’d long since grieved. He smiles at him, shaking and grateful. But the shaking doesn’t reach his hands, doesn’t reach his legs, nowhere it can touch his friends. He doesn’t pretend Eraserhead won’t notice.

———

Kacchan wakes up not long after they leave, still a little high, and politely and consensually dislocates Izuku’s shoulder because they both know that this night was a tall list of stupid decisions, even if some of them had saved all of their lives. He’d promised, and this also saved weeks of seething. Plus, he gets to teach Kacchan something new, pretending he doesn’t know Kacchan will use this knowledge the next time someone tries to bully one of his friends. Toshi isn’t happy, but he doesn’t stop them, and even laughs a little when Izuku politely corrects his friend’s grip.

The hospital staff don’t see it, but they’re deeply disappointed in him for getting hurt in their nice, peaceful hospital.

He thinks he sees Eraserhead’s shoulders shaking as the man passes the doorway and sees him chipper and chatting away at the very distressed woman setting his shoulder. He’s a bit busy explaining in great detail how he’d just fallen off a chair really bad, promise. See, the chair was even on it’s side.

The doctor buys it. He’s pretty sure Eraserhead doesn’t.

And then Kaa-chan charges in, sobbing and furious and gentle and whoops. He’s probably going to get coddled until forever. The thought is warmer than he thought it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Izuku kills a bad man who tries to kidnap his friends for their Quirks, accidentally throws a knife at Eraserhead, and then him and Toshi and Kacchan go to a hospital to get patched up and talk to Eraserhead a bit.


	4. Growing Up

Hitoshi Shinsou is 9 and his muscles are burning. He’s lightheaded with exhaustion and adrenaline, and he’s just done his first set of 100 pushups. Izukkun and Kacchan are cheering as he flops over on his back, shaking. Izukkun drags him upright, props him up against the boy’s All Might bean bag chair and Kacchan presses a wet rag that feels like heaven against his forehead with a worried twist in his brow and a proud, savage smile and holds it there because Toshi’s arms are on fire and he’s not entirely sure he can lift them. He doesn’t particularly want to try. Izukkun is vibrating and smiling like he just won the lottery and helps him take a big gulp of water.

The other two are sweaty too, Kacchan from weights and Izukkun from leg lifts. But this is a victory, for him, for them it feels like. Concrete progress.

They all used to exercise; pushup competitions in the park and races and climbing trees for hours. It was different now. Now they were training. Training to be Heroes so no one could hurt them ever again, so they could save people.

Like Izukkun had saved him.

He remembered that night in so much detail and he wishes he didn’t. Nightmares and shaking and the fear of the dark that he just can’t get rid of linger even a year and a half later. But he remembers Izukkun saving him, saving all of them. And yeah, he remembers blood and empty dead eyes and fear like fangs sinking into him and choking him. He remembers the look in Izukkun’s eyes when he darted away from a hit that came seconds late, how he’d grimaced flipping the corpse over like he did when they were lugging buckets of water balloons in the park and how he smiled at him, covered in blood and illuminated by pale light from the dropped phone. Too easy, so simple, too casual. How could he smile after doing that? How could he handle it when Toshi barely can and he hadn’t done anything. He’d done nothing. He remembers thinking monster and then thinking ohthankgoditsallgonnabeokay.

He remembers hours later promising himself that he’d get stronger so Izukkun never had to do that for him again, looking away from cold, fox eyes and sinking into his friend’s lap and turning away so he didn’t have to see anything anymore.

He remembers all three of them, bundled up in All Might onesies and big soft blankets on the couch at Izukkun’s place with hot chocolate, Izukkun’s Kaa-chan and Kacchan’s mom and dad in the kitchen, voices quiet over the TV sounding as scared and tired as he felt. He remembers promising to get stronger and two voices joining him, resolutely. He remembers feeling like nothing would ever be the same again, but that it was okay, because these two would never, ever leave. He wasn’t alone. He didn’t have to be alone.

Izukkun holds the cup up for him to drink again and Toshi smiles at him, grins like the world is theirs. Izukkun and Kacchan smile back, savage and proud and determined.

Izukkun’s Kaa-chan calls them for dinner and he groans.

“I don’t know if I can stand.” He doesn’t care that he’s whining. He deserves whining.

Kacchan grunts. “Don’t be stupid.” And jams his shoulder into his armpit and heaves him up.

Izukkun is chattering away at a mile a minute and steadies him with one hand as Kacchan lets go slowly, one hand on his back and hovering. Everything hurts. But it’s a good hurt.

He can smell ramen broth and fried meat and Izukkun is bouncing as he leads them out the door. The table is set and he sees his place marked with a dark green cup with lilies crawling up the sides that’s his here, already out and filled with juice and he wonders if he’s ever felt more at home. More safe. He wonders if things have ever felt this okay.

———

Inko Midoriya’s boy is 10 and she knows there’s something different about him. She’s a lot of things, but not one of them is stupid and not one of them is unobservant. She’s known for a long time.

It’s not Quirkless different, or smart different, or different because he’s too full of spirit to contain all that passion inside him. That’s all true, of course, but that’s not what she means. 

She notices things. Like kitchen knives “breaking” and being “thrown away” too often. She knows her Izukkun can cook, because they do it together. He even makes her dinner some nights, nothing fancy but it’s still so thoughtful and kind. Sometimes she has to stay at the office late and Mitsuko picks the boys up and when she gets home Izukkun is waiting at the table with a two plates of food halfway to cold and big, grateful eyes and he looks to happy to see her it almost breaks her heart. She sees the notebooks of Hero notes that are far, far too keen for a boy his age. They include ruthlessly practical analysis and counters that she knows might make some pros flinch, messy medical diagrams that look like anything but guesses. He popped a dislocated shoulder back in with only a grimace, and she’d only caught it because she’d gone looking for him at the park. They had to get home for dinner early, the only reason she’d caught him at all, and he’d deflected so well she forgot about it until later that evening when he was already in bed. He leads the other kids at the park better than most managers she’s worked with, lead them through games that push them. The training they do, the three if them, seems almost military at times. And he has nightmares, she’s seen him when she passes by at night sometimes, back pressed to the wall and hand clutched to his shirt and eyes unseeing and chest heaving. He’s never screamed and he’s never come to her and asked if he can sleep in her bed tonight like she knows others boys do, like she with with her own Kaa-san when she was his age.

She doesn’t know what it means, but she knows that it means something. Her boy is different.

And she’s worried, of course she is, but . . . Her boy is happy. Her Izukkun is so happy. He wants to be a Hero so bad, and with how much work he puts in she just knows he can do it. Even if teachers call her and suggest, politely, that she steer him on a different course. Even if Mitsuko asks her if she’s really okay with her boy being delusional like that (Inko gives her the what’s what and even though the other woman apologizes they both know she still means it).

Her boy has a strong heart and he hasn’t let anyone take that from him. Neither of them talk about it, the ways that he’s different from other children. They don’t have to. And so long as it doesn’t hurt her boy, she won’t bring it up. She just hopes that he knows he can tell her anything, that he can talk to her if something comes up that he can’t deal with.

And he hopes he knows that his Kaa-chan has a strong heart and a strong will too and that if anything ever touches a hair on his or his little friends heads she will burn them down to the roots and salt the earth. Because he’s her boy. And she’s always going to be worried about him. Her boy’s okay, for now. But she’s fought Hero Agencies in court for well over a decade now and she knows exactly how to fight back if she needs to. How to fight for her boy, if she needs to. When she’ll need to.

She likes to think her son get’s his quick mind from her.

She is and isn’t right.

———

Izuku Midoriya is 11 and his park squad, who has slowly tapered down to maybe a dozen kids now, has come up with a new game all on their own. They’ve been dancing around something for weeks, all cryptic and cool. They all worked together to set it up too, hiding things throughout the neighborhood for a huge scavenger hunt. Red dusted, determined, anxious faces are all clustered around, eyes wide and waiting for him to say something. Because up until now, he’s done all the planning, made all the games. He’s been the leader, unquestionably.

He’s so, so proud.

Someone once told Naruto that he had a habit of collecting strays. That someone was Sasuke, whose ass he proceeded to beat for daring to put himself down like that, because he was a person too and just as good as anyone else, goddamn it. (Hours later, completely unknown to him, Sasuke collected an almost obscene amount of money in the Jounin pool from people who really shouldn’t be stupid enough to bet against Naruto being a reactive, overprotective little shit who took everything personally. It was their own fault, really.)

Naruto disagreed, because calling someone a stray is awful, and so is saying that he collected people. Izuku is still of that opinion. He also agrees that he tends to inspire a lot of loyalty from a lot of people very quickly. Mostly because he tends to be that loyal right back, very quickly. And that he never lets that go and will one hundred percent burn the world to stumps and embers before breaking that trust.

He doesn’t have his old team anymore. But he has a new one. A new three man squad and a bigger one too, it looks like. They’ve got five hours to play.

He pumps a fist in the air and smiles like the sun because he’s ecstatic and proud and full of love and loyalty and heart and tells them to start explaining, damn it, before he runs out without the rules because that sounds so super awesome cool!

The group slums as one, relief and pride and joy shining in them. The leader of this setup, or the planner, or something like that, short hair swinging as she bounces forward with a shark’s grin, and starts talking. Honestly, it sounds amazing.

Toshi, next to him, looks slyly excited. Kacchan looks like he wants to blow something up extra bad, in the good way. It’s gonna be a great fucking day. 

———

Izuku Midoriya is 12 and he still hasn’t gotten his goddamn chakra to work. He’s tried everything. Kurama has tried everything. And yeah, sure, neither one of them are intellectual powerhouses or anything but it’s been years! You would think they’d have figured something out. Though, at this point, if he tried to channel chakra for the first time in a body this old, it would probably hurt. A lot. Because there’s a reason they start kids manipulating theirs so young, when the pathways are still elastic and can be trained to accept growth and progress. He’s not really sure he wan’t to know what it would feel like to create brand new chakra pathways. Not that that would stop him. He’d just hesitate, a bit, probably.

“And you’re sure you don’t want to try the Eight Gates?” Kurama confirms, studying their long claws as if there might be something under them. Because empty mind spaces definitely have dirt.

“I’m nuts,” Izuku shrugs. His pants are soaked with fake water that doesn’t really feel wet. “But I’m not Lee and Gai nuts. This world can’t heal anything like that. I’d be stuck doing nothing for the rest of my life. I also don’t have any clue how.”

Kurama shrugs, because they definitely don’t know either even though they’d never admit it out loud.

“I’m trying, with taijutsu, but mine wasn’t that good or anything.” It’s true. He mostly just threw charka into it and jumped around a lot. Or, okay, he’d gotten better. But he still wasn’t a master of finesse. He was experienced more than well taught. It worked then, when he’d had chakra to overpower his movement with. It wouldn’t work now.

“And you’re still set on . . . Heroics.” Kurama looks about as resigned as they do disdainful.

Izuku nods though. “I can do it.”

Kurama fixes him with a long yellow stare. That’s not at all the problem. Izuku is well aware that the problem is he’s too much of a hero already, and that this time he doesn’t have any of his badass ninjutsu or record breaking chakra levels to back it up. If he dies, Kurama dies. Probably. Neither one of them are really still sure on that. But it is a reasonable enough bet.

“I’ll be careful . . .” Izuku concedes, even though he absolutely won’t.

“You had better be.” Kurama growls, the both of them are well aware that his impulse control and self preservation instincts have in no way improved over the course of this lifetime. They’re also both ignoring this.

“And I’ll have a team!” Izuku insists, arms waving in the air like it’s a very important point. And it is, kind of. Better than not having a team. Kurama seems to begrudgingly agree. He likes them better than Sasuke, and Jiraya, and even Kakashi sometimes. He’d warmed to Sakura, a little, over time, but giant charka rage beasts are apparently not very good at forgiveness. Kakashi hadn’t been a very good sensei, Sasuke had almost killed them, and Jiraya was annoying and had kept quite a bit from them. “A great team. We’re going to be amazing. The best Heroes ever!”

Kurama is not impressed. But they doesn’t insinuate they doesn’t believe him. Because if anyone knows the lengths Izuku’s stubbornness can pull him, it’s Kurama.

“Plus, if we all get into UA together, we’ll have the best teachers in the whole country! Famous Heroes!” He’s thrilled at the prospect. So are Kacchan and Toshi.

“Good at fighting doesn’t mean good at teaching.” Kurama huffs out, breath hot enough to singe his skin.

And . . . Yeah. Izuku concedes that point. Kakashi is a great fighter. He was a shit sensei though. And Jiraya tried his best. But that was still kind of a disaster.

“If you find anyone as loud or perverted as the toad, I will find a way to escape and tear you to pieces for them to watch.”

Izuku isn’t entirely sure that’s hyperbole.

———

Katsuki Bakugou is 13, and he’s fucking exhausted. He loves working out. Loves it. The burn of his muscles, feeling yourself getting stronger inch by inch, mock matches where he gets to beat the shit out of his friends while they beat the shit out of him. It’s great.

Maybe he’s been pushing it a bit, though. Just a bit.

Because right now, he’s not sure he can move. At all. Or, maybe he can, physically, but he’s not sure he can make himself.

“Kacchan?” Deku sounds concerned, hovering over him.

He cracks one eye open.

“Why are you on the floor?”

That’s a good fucking question. Why is he on the floor? Because the floor is cold, which is nice, and he barely made it up the stairs to Deku’s shitty apartment that absolutely should not be on the third floor. Like hell he can make it out of the entryway.

“Fuck you.” He says, instead.

“He overworked himself.” Toshi injects, dryly, from the couch. Bastard didn’t even help him over.

Deku gets that look on his face, all determined and completely out of place for the situation. Like they’re going into fucking battle or something. And without asking, he gets a face full of green hair as he’s hauled up and pulled forward and slumped back against the couch. He groans, but it’s nicer then the floor.

“You’re going to have to rest a few days.” Deku scolds, which sounds not at all like scolding, too cheerful, but still feels like it. “If you hadn’t pushed so far, we could have gone for a super fun run tomorrow. Maybe Toshi and I will do it without you.” He’s considering it as he shucks Katsuki’s shoes off, which feels like removing bricks from his limbs. Fuck that’s nice.

Toshi snickers. Fuck him.

Deku starts to move his legs up and down, bending them a bit at the knee. Fuck that feels nice. Hurts, too, but it feels great. And it should help get some of that whatever acid worked out of his limbs, because it was boing to hurt enough in a couple hours without that shit.

He growls, a little.

Lucky for him, Deku and Toshi can translate. Deku beams up at him.

“You know you really shouldn’t forget to stretch.” Toshi flips a page in some site or another on his phone, not looking up.

“Fuck off.” He groans, voice breaking a little at the end when Deku stretches his leg out all the way and then up towards his chest. Except it definitely doesn’t. Because that would be lame.

“I told you ten laps on top of everything was gonna put you in the hospital.” Toshi sighs and sets his phone down, switching on the tv absently and taking one of Katsuki’s hand. He massages the joints slowly, eyes fixed on the screen and resolutely pretending he isn’t helping.

“Does this look like a hospital, asshole?” His voice is a little raspy. He could use some water, shit.

“It looks like bedrest for a few days young man.” Damn, he hasn’t heard Inko come in. Situational awareness, he reminded himself dully. 

“Kaa-chan!” Deku jumps up to greet her, no doubt wrapping himself up in a hug. Deku’s Kaa-chan had the best hugs. He drops Katsuki’s leg and his heel impacts the hardwood floor. He doesn’t even really feel it, but it still hurts enough that he grunts.

“I’ll make something with a lot of protein for dinner. I better see you boys eating your fill if you’re going to exhaust yourselves like this.” Inko ruffles his hair before she bustles off to the kitchen. Izuku’s Kaa-chan is a blessing. She worries a lot, but she might be the best cook he knows. Makes up for it. Usually.

Toshi pins him with a deadpan look and sighs. “I’ll call your parents. You obviously aren’t moving tonight.”

Katsuki curls the hand Toshi’s holding in, middle finger up. Toshi laughs lightly, ringtone echoing muffled in the air.

“Bakugou-san?” Toshi sounds all polite and proper and emotive. Fake bitch. “Izuku and I were wondering if Katsuki could stay the night? We spent too long at the park and we were supposed to study for a biology test today, but we could do it tonight if he can stay.” He sounds all contrite and cheerful. The biology test is next week, anyway. Though he’s really not sure how Toshi knows that, going to a whole other school.

“- Haha, yeah we just got a little carried away.” He has an expression on his face like he’s playing along.

“- Thank you Bakugou-san. And please tell Katsuki’s Kaa-san that he’s okay, she always seems so worried about him.” Toshi’s concerned voice should win him a fucking award.

“- ah, thank you for saying so, I try to be.” All fake bashful, Katsuki could almost see the blush on his cheeks.

“- We’ll take care of him. Have a good night.” Toshi hangs up and drops the phone, melting back into the usual bland expression and slumped shoulders against the back of the couch. He only looks a little exhausted by it, which is an improvement. Socially, he’s the most competent of them. Doesn’t mean it’s easy.

“You’re like magic Toshi.” Deku is smiling like he’s witnessed a miracle.

“Ah,” Toshi sounds awkward now, genuinely. “It’s not that hard.”

“Grown ups always like you best.” Deku nods at him like this is sacred wisdom. “You’re so good at talking to people.” He’d be pouting, but he’s so obviously proud. This is why it’s so hard to be mad at Deku.

That and he does shit like help him stretch out limbs he’s nearly too tired to move at all. Which he’s started doing again. Fucking life saver.

“How do you feel about that run tomorrow Toshi?” Deku asks with a cheeky fox’s smile.

“Sounds great.”

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to punch them both. In their smug little faces.


End file.
